The Meanings Behind 20 Chemical Element Names | Mental Floss The Meanings Behind 20 Chemical Element Names filed under: chemistry , language Like us on Facebook On December 30, 2015, the International Union of Pure and Applied Chemistry announced the discovery of four new chemical elements—numbers 113, 115, 117, and 118—the first new elements added to the periodic table since 2011 . For the time being, they have the fairly clunky Latin and Greek numerical names ununtium (Uut), ununpentium (Uup), ununseptium (Uus), and ununoctium (Uuo), but, by IUPAC rules, their discovers now get the chance to officially name them. Online, there’s growing support to name one of these new “heavy metal” elements lemmium in honor of Motörhead frontman Lemmy (who died two days before they were announced), and another octarine after the fictional “color of magic” in the late Sir Terry Pratchett’s Discworld novels (Pratchett died in March 2015).

Whether these two petitions will come to fruition remains to be seen—the final names are not likely to be announced until later in the spring—but as IUPAC rules demand all new elements be named after either a mythological concept or character, a mineral, a place, a property of the element itself, or a scientist [ PDF ], it seems unlikely we’ll be seeing lemmium on the walls of chemistry classes any time soon. The stories behind 20 other chemical element names are explained here. 1. LITHIUM (3) Despite being the least dense metal, lithium takes its name from the Greek word for “stone,” lithos, because it was discovered in a rock (as opposed to the other alkali metals potassium and sodium, which were discovered in plants and animals). 2. CARBON (6) The name carbon comes from the Latin word carbo, meaning “coal” or “charcoal.” A small carbo, incidentally, was a carbunculus, which is the origin of carbuncle. 3. NEON (10) Neon takes its name from neos, the Greek word for “new” (it was “newly” discovered in 1898). 4.

PHOSPHORUS (15) Phosphorus literally means “light-bearer” or “light-bringing,” as the first compound of the element glowed in the dark. A century before it became the name of element 15 in the late 1600s, Phosphorus was an alternative name for the planet Venus, whose appearance in the sky was once believed to strengthen the light and heat of the Sun. 5. VANADIUM (23) One of the transition metals, pure vanadium is a harsh steel-grey color, but four of its oxidation states produce a rainbow of solutions, colored purple, green, blue, and yellow . Because he was so impressed with how beautiful and varied these solutions were, the Swedish chemist Nils Sefström chose to name vanadium after Vanadís, an alternate name for the Norse goddess of beauty, Freya. Vanadium’s next door neighbor, chromium (24), also produces a variety of colored compounds and so takes its name from the Greek word for “color,” chroma. 6.

COBALT (27) Cobalt is often naturally found alongside or in minerals combined with arsenic, and when smelted, cobalt ore can emit noxious arsenic-laden fumes. Long before the poisonous qualities of minerals like these could be explained by science, copper miners in central Europe had no better explanation than to presume these toxic effects were supernatural, and were caused by devious underground goblins called kobolds who lived inside the rock—and it's from the German word kobold that cobalt gets its name. 7. COPPER (29) The chemical symbol for copper is Cu, which derives from the metal’s Latin name, cuprum. In turn, cuprum is descended from Kyprios, the Ancient Greek name for the island of Cyprus, which was well known in antiquity for its production of copper.

Some other chemical elements named after places include germanium (32), americium (95), berkelium (97), californium (98), and darmstadtium (110), while the elements ruthenium (44), holmium (67), lutetium (71), hafnium (72), and polonium (84) take their names from the Latin names for Russia (Ruthenia), Stockholm (Holmia), Paris (Lutetia), Copenhagen (Hafnia), and Poland (Polonia). 8. GALLIUM (31) A brittle, silvery-colored metal with a melting point just above room temperature, at 85ºF—meaning that a solid block would quite easily melt in your hand —gallium was discovered in 1875 by the French chemist Paul-Émile Lecoq de Boisbaudran.

He chose to name it after Gaul, the Latin name for France, but soon after his discovery was announced, de Boisbaudran was forced to deny allegations that he had actually intended the name gallium to be a self-referencing pun on his own name: Lecoq means “the rooster” in French, while the Latin word for “rooster” is gallus. Despite explicitly writing in a paper in 1877 that France was the true namesake, the rumor dogged de Boisbaudran his whole life and has endured to today. 9. BROMINE (35) One of just two elements that are liquid at room temperature (the second being mercury), bromine usually appears as a rich, dark red-brown liquid, similar to blood, that emits fumes and has a characteristically harsh smell. Ultimately, it takes its name from a Greek word, bromos, meaning “stench.” 10. KRYPTON (36) Because it is colorless, odorless, and so difficult to discover, krypton takes its name from the Greek word for “hidden,” kryptos. 11.

STRONTIUM (38) The only chemical element named after a place in Britain, strontium takes its name from its mineral ore strontianite, which was in turn named after the town of Strontian in the Scottish Highlands near where it was discovered in 1790. 12. YTTRIUM (39) In 1787, a Swedish Army officer and part-time chemist named Carl Axel Arrhenius came across an unusually heavy, black-colored rock in the waste heap of a quarry near the village of Ytterby, 15 miles outside Stockholm. He named his discovery ytterbite, and sent a sample of the mineral to his colleague, Professor Johan Gadolin (the namesake of element number 64, gadolinium), at Åbo University in modern-day Finland . Gadolin found that it contained an element that was entirely new to science, which he called yttrium; since then, many more elements have been discovered in Ytterby’s mine, and three more—terbium (65), erbium (68), ytterbium (70)—have been given names honoring the village in which it was discovered.

Consequently, the tiny Swedish village of Ytterby remains the most-honored location on the entire periodic table. 13. ANTIMONY (51) To etymologists, antimony is probably the most troublesome of all chemical element names, and its true origin remains a mystery. Instead, various unproven theories claim that it might derive from Greek words meaning “floret” (a reference to the spiky appearance of its ore, stibnite), “against solitude” (a reference to the idea that it never appears naturally in its pure form), and even “monk-killer” (as antimony is poisonous, and many early alchemists were monks). 14. XENON (54) Like xenophobia, xenon takes its name from a Greek word, xenos, meaning “strange” or “foreign.” 15. PRASEODYMIUM (59) Because of the greenish color of its mineral salts, the lanthanide metal praseodymium takes its name from a Greek word meaning “green,” prasios—which in turn takes its name from the Greek word for a leek, prason. The dymium part is more complicated .

In 1842, a new “element” was discovered called didymium, from the Greek for "twin," so named because it was always accompanied with cerium and lanthanum (and possibly because the namer had two pairs of twins of his own). Forty years later, scientists split didymium into two different elements, praseodidymium (green twin) and neodidymium (new twin). The di- was dropped almost instantly, leaving neodymium and praseodymium. 16. SAMARIUM (62) Several famous names are commemorated on the periodic table, including Albert Einstein (einsteinium, 99), Niels Bohr (bohrium, 107), Enrico Fermi (fermium, 100), Alfred Nobel (nobelium, 102), and Pierre and Marie Curie (curium, 96). The earliest eponymous element, however, was the little-known metal samarium, which indirectly took its name from an equally little-known Russian mining engineer called Vasili Samarsky-Bykhovets.

In the early 1800s, Samarsky was working as chief clerk of the Russian mining department when he granted a German mineralogist named Gustav Rose access to a collection of samples taken from a mine in the Ural Mountains. Rose discovered a new mineral in one of the samples, which he named samarskite in Samarsky’s honor; decades later, in 1879, de Boisbaudran found that samarskite contained an element that was new to science, which in turn he named samarium. 17. DYSPROSIUM (66) Eleven years after discovering gallium and 7 years after discovering samarium, de Boisbaudran discovered the rare earth element dysprosium in 1886. It took him 30 attempts to isolate a pure sample—and consequently he named it after dysprositos, a Greek word meaning “hard to get at.” 18.

TANTALUM (73) Ten times rarer than gold in the universe, tantalum is a hard, silvery metal known for its resistance to corrosion and its chemical inertness, both of which make it extremely useful in the manufacture of laboratory equipment and medical implants. Although it’s sometimes said to have been named for the “tantalizing” frustration early chemists experienced in trying to obtain a pure sample, it’s tantalum’s unreactiveness that is the real origin of its name: Because it appears unaffected by practically anything it is submerged in or brought into contact with, tantalum is named for Tantalus, a character in Greek mythology who was punished by being forced to stand knee-deep in a pool of water below a fruit tree, both of which drew away from him whenever he reached out to eat or drink (a story which is also the origin of the word tantalize). Incidentally, Tantalus’s daughter Niobe also features on the periodic table as the namesake of element 41, niobium. 19.

URANIUM (92) Uranium was discovered by the German chemist Martin Heinrich Klaproth in 1789, who named it honor of the planet Uranus, which had also only recently been discovered. When elements 93 and 94 were discovered in 1940, they were named neptunium and plutonium so as to continue the sequence of planets. 20. MENDELEVIUM (101) The invention of the periodic table is credited to the Russian chemist Dmitri Mendeleev in 1869, whose organization of the table allowed him not only to predict the existence of elements that had yet to be discovered at the time, but to correct what was generally understood about the properties of some existing elements. Element number 101, mendelevium, is appropriately named in his honor. Table of Elements in Greek and Latin (Rome) Language. Sidebar Periodic Table of Elements The Greek language and Greek myth have contributed greatly to the sciences, including chemistry. This is most apparent in the Periodic Table of Elements. A table of the elements with mythological influences, or at least have the Greek language to thank for their names, is below.

For kicks, I have included the Latin (Roman) terms also. (Please note: this is not the complete table of elements, only those with Greek or Latin influences.) Actinium From the Greek wordaktinos (ray) Aluminum From the Latin wordalumen, or"bitter". Antimony From the Greek words anti (opposed) and monos (solitude) Argon From the Greek wordargon (inactive) Arsenic From the Greek wordarsenikos and the Latin wordarsenicum, meaning "yellow orpiment". Astatine From the Greek wordastatos (unstable) Barium From the Greek wordbarys (heavy) Bromine From the Greek wordbrômos (stench) Cadmium Symbol: Cd Atomic Number: 48 From the Greek wordkadmeia (ancient name for calamine) and from the Latin word cadmia.Cadmus, in Greek myth, was the founder of Thebes. Calcium From the latin wordcalcis (lime) Carbon Ceres (asteroid), and the Roman version of Demeter, the goddess of agriculture.

Cesium From the Latin wordcaesius (sky blue) Chlorine From the Greek wordkhlôros (green) Chromium From the Greek wordchrôma (color) Copper From the Latin wordcyprium, after the island of Cyprus and birthplace of Aphrodite. Dysprosium From the Greek worddysprositos (hard to get at). Fluorine From the Latin wordfluo (flow) Gold From the Latin wordaurum (gold). In Roman mythology, Aurora was the goddess of dawn--golden indeed. Helium From the Greek wordhêlios (sun); Helios in Greek mythology was the god of the Sun. Hydrogen Symbol: H Atomic Number: 1 From the Greek words hudôr (water) and gennan(generate). Heracles fought the Hydra of Lerna (a sea town) for his second labor. Iodine From the Greek wordiôdes (violet). Iridium Symbol: Ir Atomic Number: 77 From the Latin wordiridis (rainbow). The Greeks had a messenger goddess, Iris, whose colorful cape flowed behind her.

Iron From the Latin wordferrum (iron) Krypton Symbol: Kr Atomic Number: 36 From the Greek wordkryptos (hidden). In modern language, words such as "encrypt" can be discerned from the Greek. Lanthanum From the Greek wordlanthaneis (to lie hidden). Lead Symbol: Pb Atomic Number: 82 Name Origin: From the Greek word protos (first). Some Greeks believd that the first god ever was Protogonus, or "first born". Symbol Origin: From the Latin wordplumbum (lead) Lithium From the Greek wordlithos (stone) Manganese From the Latin wordmangnes (magnet) Molybdenum From the Greek word molubdos (lead) Neodymium Symbol: Nd Atomic Number: 60 From the Greek words neos (new) anddidymos (twin). Twins appear regularly in Greek myth, from the Dioscuri (Castor & Polydeuces) to the divine twins (Artemis & Apollo). Neon Form the Greek word neos (new) Neptunium After the planet Neptune, the Roman sea god, identified as Poseidon in Greek myth.

Niobium Symbol: Nb Atomic Number: 41 After Niobe, daughter of mythical king (Tantalus). She had bragged about her set of seven girls and seven boys, scoffing at Leto for only having two children. Apollo and Artemis promptly killed her offspring. Niobe, in despair, was turned to stone by the gods. Osmium From the Greek word osmë (odor) Oxygen From the Greek words oxus (acid) andgennan (generate) Palladium From the Greek goddess (Pallas) and after an asteroid Phosphorous Symbol: P Atomic Number: 15 From the Greek words phôs (light) andphoros (bearer), Phosphoros was a god of light in Greek myth. Plutonium After the planet Pluto and the Latin god of the Underworld (Hades in Greek). Potassium Symbol Origin: From the Latin word kalium Praseodymium From the Greek words prasios (green) anddidymos (twin) Promethium From the Titan Prometheus who stole fire of the sky and gave it to man. Protactinium From the Greek word protos (first) [see name origin for lead].

Radium From the Latin word radius (ray) Rhodium From the Greek word rhodon (rose) Rubidium From the Latin word rubidus (red) Ruthenium From the Latin word Ruthenia (Russia) Selenium From the Greek word Selênê, known as the goddess of the moon. Sodium Symbol Origin: From the Latin wordnatrium (sodium) Silicon From the Latin word silex (flint) Sulfur From the Latin word sulfur (brimstone) Tantalum Symbol: Ta Atomic Number: 73 After king Tantalus, a son of Zeus who earned the disfavor of the gods for attempting to serve his son Pelops as a meal. He was condemned to the Underworld with eternal thirst and hunger though a river and fruit tree were just beyond his grasp. Technetium From the Greek word technêtos (artificial) Tellurium From the Greek word tellus (Earth) Thallium From the Greek word thallos (young shoot) Tin Symbol Origin: From the Latin wordstannum (tin) Titanium From the Greek word titanos (Titans). The Titans were the "original" gods before the Olympians.

Uranium Symbol: U Atomic Number: 92 After the planet Uranus, the original sky god who was the son and spouse of Gaia, or Mother Earth. Xenon BBC Science - The periodic table: how elements get their names The periodic table: how elements get their names By Christopher Brooks BBC Scotland Most people could name many of the elements, but how many of us know how they got those names? Each of the 115 known chemical elements was discovered over the last few thousand years, from before recorded history began to the nuclear laboratories of the 21st century. British scientists and the elements Humphry Davy discovered nine elements using electrolysis - the splitting up of compounds into elements by applying electricity. William Ramsay discovered a new group of unreactive elements using spectroscopy , now called the noble gases. William Crookes identified helium for the first time, and also discovered thallium . Their chosen names were influenced by an ever changing mix of language, culture and our understanding of chemistry. So how did they get these names? And why do they end in -ium? Ancient Elements Several elements' names have Anglo-Saxon language origins, including gold, iron, copper and silver.

These metals were known long before they got these names, however. Gold can be found in its pure form in nature and although iron is usually found in ores which require smelting, the earliest known iron artefacts, from 3500 BCE, derive from purer metal from meteorites. The Latin names of these elements are commemorated in their atomic symbols, Au (aurum) for gold and Fe (ferrum) for iron. The Romans began the practise of element names ending in "-um," with Victorian scientists continuing the trend. Meteoric iron was used by humans before smelting of iron ores was invented. Element of uncertainty Since 1947, the International Union of Pure and Applied Chemistry ( IUPAC ) has had the responsibility for approving elements' names, and deciding the single internationally recognised symbol for each element. Before this, there were multiple historical occasions of elements being given several names, usually due to simultaneous discovery or uncertainty over a discovery. The name of element 41 was not agreed for 150 years. It was called columbium in America and niobium in Europe until IUPAC finally decided the official name would be niobium in 1949.

Dr Fabienne Meyers, Associate Director of IUPAC, explains the current naming process : To start with, "the discoverers are invited to propose a name and a symbol." "For linguistic consistency, the recommended practice is that all new elements should end in '-ium'," she adds. The sake of naming an element is essentially to avoid confusion.” End Quote Dr Fabienne Meyers Associate Direcor, IUPAC "Since the sake of naming an element is essentially to avoid confusion, it is important to ensure that the proposed name is unique and has not been used earlier even unofficially or temporarily for a different element." "After examination and acceptance by the division - which includes a public review period of five months - the name and symbol are then submitted to the IUPAC Council for approval." The name is then published in the scientific journal Pure and Applied Chemistry . Actinium to zirconium A common source of names both now and historically, over a quarter of the elements are named after a place, often where they were discovered or synthesised. These places range in size from continents (europium) and countries (americium, francium, polonium) to the the Scottish village Strontian (strontium).

Because of the great wealth of discoveries made there, four elements are named after the Swedish mining village, Ytterby (ytterbium, yttrium, erbium and terbium). There is just one element that wasn't first discovered on Earth, and it too is named after its place of the discovery - helium, from the Greek word for Sun, helios. Myth and legend Dmitri Mendeleev published the periodic table in its modern form. About a dozen elements take their name directly from legends, including titanium, arsenic and tantalum. Nickel and cobalt are named after 'devil' and 'kobold', from the Germanic folk belief that malign creatures snuck into mines to replace valuable and similar-looking copper and silver ores with these less valuable ones. In 1949 the artificial element Promethium was named after Prometheus, the man in Greek legend punished with eternal torture for stealing fire from the gods, as a reference to the great difficulty and sacrifice needed to synthesise new elements. Eponymous elements Modestly, no discoverer has ever named an element after him or herself, but several scientists have been honoured by having elements named after them.

These include curium , einsteinium and fermium . Seaborgium, named after American chemist Glenn Seaborg , was the first element to be named after a living scientist. There is also mendelevium, named after Dmitri Mendeleev , the Russian scientist who established the first periodic table in 1869, and fitted the known elements into their places in the table based on their properties. Elemental techniques Sample of chlorine created by Humphry Davy in 1810. It is named after the Greek word for green. Fifty elements were discovered in the 19th Century, the greatest number of any century. By comparison, twenty nine elements were discovered in the 20th Century, and five new ones have been synthesised so far in the 21st. Frank James, Professor of the History of Science at The Royal Institution in London, where several elements were discovered, says that the contribution of British scientists was very important.

"Using electro-chemical methods, Humphry Davy either isolated or demonstrated the elemental nature of a total of nine chemical elements naming most of them in the process, such as sodium, potassium and chlorine." British scientist William Ramsay used a powerful new technique, spectroscopy , to discover the noble gases, a group of elements which had evaded discovery due to their lack of reactivity. He used Greek words to name neon (new), xenon (stranger), krypton (hidden), and argon (inactive). Colours and sense Colours are a name source for nine elements. Each element can be identified by the colours it emits using spectroscopy, and several elements are named after the brightest colour they emit, including indium and rubidium. WATCH: Brian Cox explains how the chemical elements are created within stars Visible traits are a major source of names, but the other senses are represented too: osmium and bromine are named for their smell, and aluminium is named after the Latin word for the bitter tasting chemical in which it was first discovered, alum.

Ununpentium onwards The newest element to be experimentally confirmed , element 115, will be called ununpentium until an official name is decided, and 114 (Flerovium) and 116 (Livermorium) were named in 2012. IUPAC's Dr Meyers explains that although all recent elements have been named after people and places, "a mythological concept or character, a mineral or a property of the element could also be used as the root for an acceptable name." And with no shortage of eminent scientists and important centres of science as inspiration, new names will always retain an element of surprise. More on This Story h2g2 - The Elements: Names and Origins - F-N - Edited Entry The Elements: Names and Origins Fluorine (9F) Fluorine is found predominantly in fluorspar (CaF2) which was used as a flux 1 , this is mentioned for the first time in Geogius Agricola's work of 1529. The use of this material as a flux, to which corresponds the Latin verb 'fluere' is the origin of fluorine's name.

Many scientists tried to isolate fluorine, but only in 1886 Ferdinand Frederic Henri Moisson succeeded. Francium (87Fr) Francium is named after France, which is where the element was isolated in 1939 by Marguerite Perey. Traces of francium occur naturally in uranium-containing minerals. Gadolinium (64Gd) Gadolinium is named after the mineral gadolinite, where it occurs. Gadolinite is in its turn named after the Finnish chemist Johan Gadolin who discovered it. It was also Gadolin who separated all the rare-earth minerals such as terbia and yttria from which terbium and yttrium were finally obtained. In that sense Gadolin was the pioneer in rare-earth research. 2 Gadolinium was isolated by Jean-Charles G de Marignac in 1886, named and identified by Andre Lecoq de Boisbaudran in the same year. Gallium (31Ga) Gallium is named after the Latin word for the region now known as France, 'Gallia'.

The story goes that Lecoq de Boisbaudran, the Frenchman who isolated the element in 1878, named it 'Gallium' because of the Latin word 'gallus' which means 'cock' or in French 'le coq'. The existence and the properties of gallium had been predicted in 1871 by Dmitri Mendeleev (who named it 'Eka-Aluminium' meaning 'the next'-Aluminium). The isolation and the confirmation of the predictions demonstrated for the first time the power of the periodic table of elements. Germanium (32Ge) Germanium is named after the Latin designation for the region now known as Germany, 'Germania'. The element and its properties were predicted in 1871 by Dmitri Mendeleev (who named it 'Eka-Silicium' meaning 'the next'-silicon). Clemens Alexander Winkler, the German chemist, identified and isolated the element in 1886. The confirmation of Mendeleev's predictions consolidated the use of the periodic table of the elements.

Gold (79Au) Gold is the old Anglo-Saxon designation for this precious metal and has roots in Sanskrit ('Jval' which means 'shining'). It occurs in its pure form naturally, and has been known from ancient times. The symbol 'Au' is derived from the Latin word for gold 'aurum' which is derived from 'Aurora' the goddess of dawn. Hafnium (72Hf) Hafnium is named after the Latin designation 'hafniae' for the city of Copenhagen, Denmark. Niels Bohr, from Copenhagen, predicted in 1922 that element 72 would exhibit almost identical chemical behaviour to the by-then-known element zirconium (40Zr). He therefore suggested looking for this element in zirconium-containing minerals, such as zirconia. In 1923, Dirk Coster and George Charles von Hevesy, both in Copenhagen, found the element in zirconia using X-ray spectroscopy. The metal was isolated by von Hevesy shortly later. Zirconium and Hafnium do indeed exhibit almost identical chemical behaviour and are, of all elements, the most difficult to separate.

Helium (2He) Helium is named after the Greek word for 'sun', 'helios' as it was identified spectroscopically by Pierre Jansen and Norman Lockyer (independently) in sunlight during the solar eclipse of 1868. William Ramsay and Per Theodore Cleve (independently) isolated pure helium in 1895 (cf. also Noble Gases - History and The Effects of Helium on Your Voice ). Holmium (67Ho) Holmium is named after 'Holmia' the Latin name for the city of Stockholm, Sweden, which is the native city of Per Theodore Cleve, who identified the element in 1879. It had been observed spectroscopically before, in 1878, by Marc Delafontaine and Jacques Louis Soret. Hydrogen (1H) Hydrogen was identified by Henry Cavendish in 1766, but was named by Antoine-Laurent Lavoisier due to the fact that hydrogen is a component of water. From the Greek words 'hydro' (meaning 'water) and 'gennan' (meaning 'to form, to generate'), hydrogen is an element that forms water.

Indium (49In) Indium was identified spectroscopically due to its deep blue, or indigo-coloured emission line ('indigo' in its turn is named after the blue dye indigo, which was used by the ancient Greeks and Romans who named it 'indikon' or 'indicum' as the dye was imported from India). The identification and the isolation of the metal is credited to Ferdinand Reich and Hieronymus Theodor Richter in 1867. Iodine (53I) Iodine is named after the Greek word 'iodes' meaning 'violet' because of the colour of gaseous iodine. Iodine is (at room temperature) a dark shiny solid with a very low vapour pressure, which means it emanates gaseous iodine already at low temperatures. Iodine was isolated by Barnard Courtois in 1811. Iridium (77Ir) Iridium derives from the Latin word 'iris' meaning 'rainbow' because it forms salts in many different colours. It was isolated and identified in 1803 by Smithson Tennant and independently by HV Collet-Descotils.

Iron (26Fe) Iron was known of from ancient times and its name is of Anglo-Saxon origin. The symbol 'Fe' is derived from the Latin word 'ferrum' for 'iron'. Krypton (36Kr) Krypton is a so-called noble gas, and is present in atmospheric air only in traces (0.0001 %). It is hidden, so to speak, in the air. The Greek word for 'hidden' (or 'concealed') is 'kryptos' after which the element was named. It was identified and isolated by William Ramsay in 1898, long before the first Superman comics came about (Also see Noble Gases - History and The Effects of Krypton on Your Voice ). Lanthanum (57La) Lanthanum occurs mixed in rare-earth bearing minerals; it kind of 'lies hidden' in these minerals. From that facet the lanthanum bearing mineral had been named lanthana, after the Greek word 'lanthanein' which means 'to lie hidden'. Lanthana was isolated and identified by Carl Gustav Mosander in 1839.

Lawrencium (103Lr) Lawrencium is named after Ernest O Lawrence, who invented the cyclotron. The element is the last in the row of the actinoids and has been synthesised by Albert Ghiorso and co-workers and, independently, by Georgi N Flerov and co-workers during the 1960s. Both teams were credited with the identification of this element in 1971. The original symbol 'Lw' was replaced by 'Lr' because the letter 'w' is not so common worldwide. Lead (82Pb) Lead has been known from antiquity. The Anglo-Saxon word 'lead' is of unknown origin. The symbol 'Pb' comes from the Latin word for 'lead', 'plumbum'. Lithium (3Li) Lithium was thought to exist only in mineral rocks and is named after the Greek word 'lithos' for 'rock or stone'. It was identified by mineralogist Johan August Arfvedson in 1817 or 1818 in the mineral petalite. Robert Bunsen isolated Lithium in 1855.

Lutetium (71Lu) Lutetium is named after 'lutetia', the Latin name of Paris. The naming process of an element is nicely exemplified in the story of this element's name. Auer von Welsbach isolated, identified and published the results for this element, which he called 'cassiopeium' (after the constellation 'Cassiopeia') in early 1907. George Urbain did the same, but his paper only appeared in late 1907 and he called the element 'lutecium' (with 'c' from the old French name lutéce ). The German Chemical Societies and naming committees took 'cassiopeium' whereas their French counterparts adopted 'lutecium'. The International Committee on Atomic Weights ended up adopting the name 'lutecium'. Urbain might have influenced this decision, as he was one of the four members of this committee. The controversy in the scientific community was huge. In 1949 all the nomenclature was to become official, and IUPAC decided to use 'lutetium' (now with a 't') as it was worldwide the most commonly used name.

Magnesium (12Mg) Magnesium is named after Magnesia, a region in Thessaly, Greece. Compounds of magnesium have long been known about. Magnesium was identified as an element in 1755 by Joseph Black, and was isolated in 1808 by Sir Humphry Davy. Manganese (25Mn) Maganese from 'magnes' Latin for 'magnet', because of the magnetic properties of pyrolusite, in which manganese occurs. 'Magnes' in turn, like the name 'magnesium' is a corrupt form of Magnesia in Greece. It was identified by Carl-Wilhelm Scheele in 1774 and isolated in the same year by Johan Gottlieb Gahn. Mendelevium (101Md) Mendelevium was named in honour of Dmitri Ivanovich Mendeleev . It is a synthetic element and was obtained by Albert Ghiorso, Glenn T Seaborg and co-workers between 1955 and 1958. Mercury (80Hg) Mercury was named after planet/deity Mercury - this name dates back to the good old days of alchemy.

The symbol 'Hg' originates from the Latin name of the element, 'hydrargyrum', meaning 'liquid silver' because mercury is, at room temperature, a liquid silvery metal. It has been known of since antiquity. Molybdenum (42Mo) Molybdenum comes from 'molybdos', which is Greek for 'lead' - as any dark, heavy metal that left marks on paper was called 'lead' in ancient times. It was also often confused with real lead. Carl Wilhelm Scheele demonstrated that molybdenum is an element in 1778. It was isolated in its pure form in 1782 by Peter-Jakob Hjelm. The original spelling was 'molybdaenum' but the 'ae' was dropped in favour of the more common 'e'. Also the ending is not 'typical' and was to be changed to '-nium' with the 'i' in 1949. However, by then the most common spelling was without the 'i', so IUPAC decided to leave the 'i' out.

Neodymium (60Nd) Neodymium comes from 'neo didymos' and means 'new twin'. But why? It all started with the discovery that a new mineral always occurred together with lanthanum in another mineral called cerite. This mineral would contain an element, which would be - figuratively speaking - lanthanum's twin. Hence Carl Gustav Mosander, who discovered all this, suggested calling the element 'didymium' in 1841. Later on, in 1885, Carl Auer von Welsbach found out that the so-called 'didymium' could be separated into further two elements, one of which he therefore called the 'new twin' or 'neodymium'. The other one he called 'praseodymium', but this will be discussed later. Neon (10Ne) Neon is a noble gas and was isolated and identified by William Ramsay in 1898. Ramsay named it after the Greek word for 'new', 'neos', because it was then a 'new' noble gas in the series.

Neptunium (93Np) Neptunium was synthesised by Edwin McMillan and Philip Abelson in 1940. It is a rather stable (it has a half-life of two million years) radioactive element, and it was named after its position after uranium in the periodic table, because the planet neptune also comes 'after' uranus. Neptune is the Roman god of the sea. Nickel (28Ni) Nickel is, like cobalt, named after a German goblin, 'Nickl' or 'Nickel'. Nickel often occurs as a shiny mineral containing arsenic. When processed, however, the mineral does not yield any 'useful' precious metal, but toxic garlic stench instead (from the arsenic compounds). Nickel was identified by Alexander Cronstedt in 1751, and characterised by Tornbern Bergmann. Niobium (41Nb) Niobium is named after 'Niobe' the daughter of 'Tantalus' in Greek mythology, because niobium is the lighter homologue of tantalum in the periodic table. These elements were initially thought to be identical.

The story started in 1801 when Charles Hatchett identified a new element which he called columbium as he found it in a mineral called columbite (after Christopher Columbus, because it was originally found in America). One year later, tantalum was discovered (in another mineral) and, because of the nearly identical chemistry of both elements it was postulated that columbium and tantalum were identical. Years later in 1846 Heinrich Rose showed that columbium and tantalum were distinct elements. On this occasion he renamed columbium to 'niobium'. The element was isolated in 1864 by Christian Wilhelm Blomstrand, who also adopted Rose's nomenclature. Meanwhile, in America, the scientific community stuck to the original designation and called the element 'columbium'. The discussion ended in 1949 when IUPAC decided to use 'niobium' as the element's official name, as it was the most common designation found internationally. Nitrogen (7N) Nitrogen was identified as a component of air in the 1770s by Carl Scheele, Herny Cavendish, Joseph Priestley and Daniel Rutherford.

Antoine Lavoisier originally called the element 'azote' as nitrogen does not support life (from Greek 'azotikon'); the German word 'Stickstoff' follows the same logic (from 'ersticken', 'to suffocate'). In 1790 the French chemist Jean Antoine Chaptal found out that nitrogen is present in saltpeter, and came up with the alternative name 'nitrogen', which is derived from the Greek words 'nitron' and 'gennan' meaning 'saltpeter' and 'to generate', respectively. This name eventually replaced 'azote' and found worldwide acceptance (except for Germany and France). Nobelium (102No) Nobelium was named after Alfred Nobel , inventor of dynamite and founder of the Nobel Prize. It was originally named in 1957 by a group of scientists affiliated to the Argonne National Laboratory in the USA, Harwell Atomic Energy Research Establishment in England and the Swedish Nobel Institute of Physics, who thought to have synthesised element 102.

The first synthesis nowadays is usually credited to the group of Georgi Flerov in Russia and to the group of Glenn T Seaborg and Albert Ghiorso in USA - both in 1958. The name Nobelium was retained by the IUPAC-CNIC as it was already being widely used in the scientific literature. 1 A flux improves the flowing properties of a molten material. 2 Following the same pattern of the lanthanoid group, the homologue of gadolinium in the actinoid group was named 'curium', in honour of the Curies, pioneers in actinoid research.

The Parts of the Periodic Table Elements named after countries, states, or other geographical features: Californium: state (and University) of California Francium: France Gallium: Latin word for France, Gallia Germanium: Latin word for Germany, Germania Hassium: German state of Hesse, where the GSI is located Magnesium: named after Magnesia, a district in Thessaly in central Greece Polonium: named for Marie Curie's native country of Poland Rhenium: named after the Latin word for the Rhine River, Rhenus Ruthenium: named after the Latin word for Russia, Ruthenia Scandium: named after the Latin word for Scandinavia, Scandia Thulium: named after the ancient word for Scandinavia, Thule Elements named after cities: Berkelium: Berkeley, California, home of the University of California, where a number of synthetic elements have been produced Darmstadtium: Darmstadt, Germany, home of the Laboratory for Heavy Ion Research (GSI, Gesellschaft fï¿½r Schwerionenforschung) where a number of synthetic elements have been produced Dubnium: Dubna, Russia, home of the Joint Institute for Nuclear Research (

JINR, Объединённый институт ядерных исследований, ОИЯИ), where a number of synthetic elements have been produced Erbium, Terbium, Ytterbium, Yttrium: all named after the Swedish village of Ytterby (near Vaxholm), where these elements were first isolated (as well as Holmium, Scandium, and Tantalum) Hafnium: Copenhagen (Hafnia), Denmark Fermium: Enrico Fermi, the inventor of the first nuclear reactor Lawrencium: Ernest O.

Lawrence, inventor of the cyclotron Meitnerium: Lise Meitner, one of the first scientists to recognize that uranium could undergo nuclear fission Mendelevium: Dimitri Mendelev, the deviser of the Periodic Table of the Elements Nobelium: Alfred Nobel, the inventor of dynamite and founder of the Nobel Prize Roentgenium: Wilhelm Rï¿½ntgen, the discoverer of X-rays Rutherfordium: Ernest Rutherford, discoverer of the atomic nucleus, and a pioneer in the study of nuclear physics Seaborgium: Glenn T.

Seaborg, who discovered/synthesized a number of transuranium elements Most of the rest of the names of the elements are derived from various chemical or physical properties: Actinium: Greek: aktinos, "ray" (because it glows with a blue light in the dark) Antimony: Greek: anti + monos, "not alone" (because it was never found uncombined with another element) Argon: Greek: argos, "idle" (because of its unreactivity) Astatine: Greek: astatos, "unstable" (because it is) Barium: Greek: barys, "heavy" (in reference to the high density of some barium minerals) Bromine: Greek: bromos, "stench" (elemental bromine has a terrible smell) Cobalt: German: kobold, "goblin" (because of the toxic fumes of arsenic that were produced when silver miners heated the arsenic-containing ore smaltite, mistaking it for silver ore) Dysprosium: Greek: dysprositos, "hard to get at" (because the first isolation of the element required a tedious separation sequence) Fluorine: Latin: fluere,

 "to flow" Hydrogen" Greek: hydro + genes, "water forming" Krypton: Greek: kryptos, "hidden" (since it had been "hidden" in a sample of argon) Lanthanum: Greek: lanthanein, "to be hidden" (because the element was discovered "hidden" as an impurity in ores of cerium) Manganese: Latin: magnes, "magnet" (because it can be made to be ferromagnetic with the right treatment) Neodymium: Greek: neos + didymos, "new twin" Neon" Greek: neos, "new" Nickel: German: kupfernickel, "Old Nick's copper" (i.e., copper of the devil, or false copper, because it was frequently mistaken for copper) Nitrogen: Latin: nitron + genes, "nitre [potassium nitrate] forming" Osmium: Greek: osme, "odor" (because of its nasty smell, which is actually caused by osmium tetroxide) Oxygen: Latin: oxy + genes, "acid forming" Phosphorus: Greek: phos + phoros, "light bringing" (because it glows

 in the dark, and spontaneously burst into flame in air) Radium: Latin: radius, "ray" (because of its ability to glow in the dark with a faint blue light) Technetium: Greek: technetos, "artificial" Tungsten: Swedish: tung sten, "heavy stone" (because of the elements high density) Xenon: Greek: xenos, "stranger" (because at the time, it did not form compounds with other elements References John Emsley, The Elements, 3rd edition.

Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1998. John Emsley, Nature's Building Blocks: An A-Z Guide to the Elements. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2001.

Question: Which chemical element is named after the Greek word for hidden?
Answer: KRYPTON